I’m not ashamed to admit that I spent most
of my childhood watching reruns on Nickelodeon, in fact,
it’s something I’ve come to be quite proud of. Some
people collect ceramic eggs, I dedicate my craft to
hunting down episodes of Littl’ Bits and dreaming of
taking a dive down the Pie Slide. Where other nostalgia
fans gave up on Nick years ago, I have still managed to
see every episode of My Dad The Rock Star about
126 times. Even when engaged in conversations about old
Nick I can throw in a, "I always wanted to ransack the
house on Finders Keepers," and have people cock their
eyebrows into their hairline.

I can only imagine how completely
embarrassed my boyfriend was in high school when would
sit together at lunch and I would loudly discuss my
latest tape trade victory in front of all his friends. I
once traded a 3 hour VHS of Pinwheel and in
return received 10 videos including Littl’
Bits, TMNT, Hey Dude, She-Ra, Monchichis, Super Mario
World, Real Ghostbusters, and a slew of
other great stuff. That was a proud day.

The digital age
has taken a huge chunk out of the trading market now
that you can download entire seasons of AHHH! Real
Monsters instead of piecing them together video by
video. But, there’s nothing like the thrill of getting a
little nostalgia package in the mail and finding a full
line-up, commercials and all.

One thing I never could obtain by trade
was Out of Control. I once found about 90
seconds of it at the end of a video, and I thought
that I’d be doomed to rewind and rewatch that 90 seconds
for the rest of my life. As much as Nick reran those 26
episodes of their first American made exclusively for
Nickelodeon show, you’d think getting copies would be
easy. I never found a collector with what I so
intimately desired, but lo, discovered one episode in a
cluttered digital package of Nick nostalgia.

One of the key elements of Out of Control
was the Hurry Up machine, which was victim to an
unfortunate tap-dancing disaster in this episode. The
cast, troopers that they are, still tried their best to
utilize the machine to help some kids fast forward
through their school day. They zoom though the school
day just before flames spark and the machine
malfunctions, causing the occasional drop backwards in
time.

Luckily, this provides a great tie-in
because Angela "Scoop" Quigley is covering a hot tip
about a boy that has his own pet dinosaur. We’re not
talking one of those huge tropical lizards, either. It’s
a huge, realistic, brontosaurus. As a child, I honestly
thought this child had a real dinosaur. Nickelodeon
obviously didn’t have the budget in these early years to
fake a dino, so my only conclusion is that it was on
loan from some place. Or the result of alien zookeeper
and space pirate warfare like the kid said,

After finding dinosaurs, the next
strategic move is for Out of Control to hunt down the
world’s best taco. Dave jumps in to a mariachi band,
watches tacos being made, samples some spicy tacos, and
even delivers a trophy for the best taco. But, in the
ultimate display of one-ups-manship Hern presents THE
SINGING TACO.

If there’s any food product more hilarious
when singing and dancing than a taco, I’ve never eaten
it. There’s something about Hern that reminds me of the
dirty traveling amusement park guy from Follow that
Bird. Maybe it’s the haircut, maybe it’s the voice,
I can’t really pinpoint it without watching the movie
again, and I’m not prepared for a dose of Dodo’s right
now.

A popular segment from Out of Control was
How (NOT) To Do Things. The bit was an instructional
video featuring the wrong and right ways of performing
basic operations. In this episode, they cover the ins
and outs of building a go kart. Two stooges attempt to
build a go kart out of bottlecaps and toilet lids, and
are trumped by a kid with a hammer and a dream.

Angela presents a new "interactive"
connect the dots presentation, turning her face into a
live Wooly Willy. This is followed by the ornery cartoon
dude doing a speech on astronomy. I’m not sure if the
little animated guy had a name [The Critic], but he was generally the
asshat that provided a buffer zone from skit to skit by
insulting the show and being victim to zany
cartoonist-inflicted situations.

Despite the great filler material, the
Hurry Up machine is still acting up, and Dave uses it to
his advantage by going back in time. Far back
to sixteenth century England. Dave takes a tour of the
games they had to offer back then, and even offers to
show some games of the new age, like "pocket" video
football, which is only pocket sized if you make a habit
of carrying bricks in your jeans. It’s still enough to
freak the villagers into naming him as a witch, and
calling to have him burned at the stake.

The on-site handyman and inventor, Waldo,
managed to fix the machine in time to save Dave.
Everyone gives a woot woot of celebration, especially
Diz, even after overexerting herself raiding Cyndi
Lauper’s wardrobe. I still don’t know if that
high-pitched squeal of hers was real or a soundbyte, but
a good chunk of my childhood was spent trying to imitate
it to aide in annoying my older brothers.

Out of Control was one of those shows that
aired so unbelievably much, I thought it would be on
forever. Back then, Nick wasn’t the merchandising empire
it was today so even official VHS tapes are nonexistent.
In fact, you had to mail
in for a copy of their schedule. The show continued
into the 90s with reruns, then rode gently into the
sunset with the likes of DangerMouse and Pinwheel.